


... at the End of the Universe

by Caracalliope



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Mystery Snack, POV Outsider, Self-Sacrifice, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23711017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope
Summary: A ghost, a Maid, and a Prince walk into a bar.
Relationships: Jane Crocker & Dirk Strider, Jane Crocker & Nannasprite
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26
Collections: Flash In The Pan: A Food Flash Exchange





	... at the End of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aroberuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroberuka/gifts).



JANE: Excuse me, Nanna.

NANNASPRITE: Yes, dear?

JANE: Do you happen to have any more of those delicious cookies up your sleeve?

NANNASPRITE: No, dear. I can whip up a new batch for you when you get out of this desert. Find the exit and you’ll have cookies in two shakes of a lamb's tail! Hoo hoo hoo, or my tail.

JANE: Hee! Well. Dirk and I would really appreciate it if you could do that for us _now_.

NANNASPRITE: I know you would, dear! And that would be a tad too easy, wouldn’t it?

JANE: ...

NANNASPRITE: Remember, my cookies are a gimmick, not a resource! I can only access them when you aren’t hungry. Otherwise, it’d be cheating.

JANE: Sure, of course. Thank you anyway, ma'am.

Your son's double raised a polite young lady. But you’re familiar with that smile: young Jane is wishing you to hell right now, along with the Game that is still keeping you on this plane. Her young man squeezes her shoulder and they continue their trek through the bleak alien wasteland of this sidequest.

You naturally assumed they were sweethearts, but some light snooping set you straight. They are rivals in love, competing for the affection of your brother's copy! Hoo hoo hoo, how bamboozling that such a man would inspire such effort.

You also learned that young Jane is more gracious than you ever were to those trying to steal your recipes or business plans or your sweet Egbert's hand. After one long conversation that you were exiled from, the children set their differences aside. The friendship between them reminds you of faces long-forgotten, bonds erased by time and habit. Oh! And also by death. How strangely comforting, to think some of them were dead before the meteor hit.

You give Jane and her friend a slice of time alone whenever you can. Complaining about you must be one of their rare pleasures out here. Occasionally, you add pranks to your repertoire. Can't let them run out of things to complain about!

You are not present when they finally reach the derelict troll nightclub, but you catch up with them quickly enough. There are shelves of unopened beverages, most of them in some shade of purple. But both children ignored that in favor of a large dark bag with purple lettering.

JANE: Nanna? Please, can you tell us what this says?

You run some calculations. They skipped a minigame that would have taught them the troll alphabet, so you can’t translate for them as easily as before. Because of their impatience, they will not be able to enjoy the scenery to its fullest. But that minigame wasn't essential, and the following choice is, so you have permission to say:

NANNASPRITE: It says ‘Lowblood Entrail Mix’, dear. And ‘endorsed by His Holiness’. I don't see any expiration date.

Jane looks revulsed, though she doesn't drop the bag. You remember the ghost of that feeling, if not the feeling itself.

DIRK: It’s probably just edgy marketing.

He doesn’t speak much, and his voice is hoarse and quiet. He made Jane finish their last bottle of water a few hours ago, and you suspect he covertly stopped drinking a while before that.

DIRK: That’s a thing for trolls, or at least it was in the later days of the Condescension’s reign on Earth. Urban Dictionary defines crockerism as a violent empty threat delivered in the form of a punny brand name, not to be confused with Crockerism, the religion. Maybe the joke is that they deliberately left out the vocative comma after lowblood.

JANE: Comforting! And if it really is a shiny bag of entrails, which is just our luck these days, they'd be troll organs and that means we wouldn't be cannibals in any meaningful sense.

He offers a thumbs-up. She opens the bag, keeping it away from her face. Carefully, she peers inside.

JANE: Are these bug-shaped cashews or perhaps vice versa? Or gallbladder stones shaped like either.

DIRK: So are you planning to share, or?

His voice is flat, and Jane just hugs the bag to her chest and smiles at him. You recognize this smile too - it's the one that says she can't be swayed from her course. You mirror it unintentionally but neither kid is paying attention.

DIRK: Aw, come on, let me go first. Where's your sense of chivalry?

JANE: I don't think that this is deadly - the Game can't be that pointless, can it? If it is, we're better off dead. But anyway, this could still make us sick, and as the leader of this posse, I need to be the one performing all taste tests.

DIRK: You're like a king appointing yourself as your own royal poison tester, and that means you're sucking at both jobs. Have you even eaten insects before? Jane, I've been training for this my whole life. Let me go first.

JANE: What if the ogres attack and you need to do the things you really did train for, like stabbing and dodging, but instead you're busy puking or growing troll gills? If only one of us is going to stay in fighting shape, it needs to be the better fighter. And remember the assassination attempts? I actually do have experience with this kind of risk.

You resist the urge to applaud when she reaches into the bag and the boy doesn't object. Satisfying calculations are flashing through your mind.

The exact contents of the bag weren't defined until just now. The children chose the smartest option, and their reward is that no serious illness will strike them down, including allergies, the potential plot twist. Depending on the randomizer, Jane might even get stronger from the protein, and then she can defeat the bathroom faucets and avoid the Choose A Clown Beverage minigame.

You are only their stand-in guide, and these players aren't yours in any meaningful way. But as you watch them trust themselves and each other, you can't help feeling proud.


End file.
